What’s up With Cosmos Ecosystem — Projects’ Updates and Ratings

After Delphi Labs announced that it would focus its future R&D on the Cosmos ecosystem, Cosmos once again entered the limelight and attracted a lot of attention. The popularity of some of the generic chains in its ecosystem has also climbed. In this article, we have selected a few familiar chains for general purposes in the Cosmos ecosystem for a brief introduction and comparison. We hope to help our users understand the Cosmos ecosystem faster. The projects involved are Cosmos Hub, Kava, Evmos, Juno, Cronos, and Fetch.ai. We have analyzed and evaluated each of them in multiple dimensions using our own rating methodology. We hope our users will develop a deeper understanding of the Cosmos ecosystem after finishing this article.

A Quick Overview

We will briefly introduce these projects.

• The hub of the Cosmos network, Cosmos Hub.
• Public chains/smart contract platforms with relatively general purposes in the Cosmos ecosystem, Kava, Evmos, and Juno
• Projects with more specific purposes and use cases, Cronos and Fetch.ai.

Cosmos Hub

To introduce what Cosmos Hub is, first we need to have a brief understanding of what Cosmos is. ( Related Reading: What Is Cosmos? A Complete Guide)

Cosmos is a network of blockchain sets with a mesh structure based on the Tendermint consensus mechanism. The core product of Cosmos: the Cosmos SDK, a custom blockchain development toolkit, allows developers to use the available modules to develop blockchains for different needs with a high degree of freedom. And Cosmos Hub is the first blockchain launched in the Cosmos ecosystem, which can be seen as the center of the entire Cosmos network. We can think of it as the central processor of the Cosmos network. Cosmos Hub is responsible for managing and tracking the activity on each of the subchains to ensure the synchronization of information.

Kava, Evmos & Juno

Kava, Evmos, and Juno have a relatively general purpose across the Cosmos ecosystem. They are used as infrastructure to serve users or to provide support for developers.

Kava

Kava is a Layer1 blockchain with a common chain architecture of Ethereum and Cosmos. It has two co-chains, Cosmos Co-Chain and Ethereum Co-Chain, and the chains can communicate with each other through a translator. With such a co-chain structure, developers can use Cosmos SDK or EVM, two completely different execution environments, for project development and deployment, while enjoying interoperability. In addition, Kava can communicate with other chains in the Cosmos ecosystem via the IBC protocol.

Juno

Juno is the first smart contract platform for Cosmos. It supports developers in the Cosmos ecosystem as a DApp development platform. It is built using the Cosmos SDK and is based on the Tendermint consensus. The most important feature of Juno is CosmWasm. Through CosmWasm, developers can write smart contracts and deploy them in a language they are familiar with.

Evmos

Evmos is the EVM hub of the Cosmos ecosystem. Evmos is based on the Tendermint Core consensus mechanism and is built on top of the Cosmos SDK. It enables interoperability between Ethereum and Evmos using the IBC protocol.

Cronos & Fetch.ai

• Cronos is a public chain developed by the Crypto.com exchange using Cosmos, and can be seen as part of the exchange ecosystem, much like BNB Chain is to Binance
• Fetch.ai is an open-source artificial intelligence learning platform based on distributed ledger technology, designed to help developers use AI technology in decentralized projects

Although all these projects mentioned in this article can be classified as chains for general purposes in the Cosmos ecosystem. But their roles in the Cosmos ecosystem, service purpose, application technology, etc. are different. We have rated each of these projects using our rating methodology and provide a detailed analysis of each project’s performance in each dimension as follows.

Rating Comparison

Underlying Technology & Security

Among these projects, all but Juno have publicly disclosed their smart contract audit reports. Cosmos Hub had the most frequent audits, with more than 5. Cronos had the lowest number of security issues in the audit report (only 2). In addition, all of the projects have set up their own bug bounty programs.

In terms of GitHub, Cosmos, as the provider of the underlying technology, undoubtedly has the most Stars and Fork, while Evmos has half the number of Stars and close to the number of Forks of Cosmos Hub, making it the best-performing project besides Cosmos Hub. The remaining projects have relatively poor GitHub performance, with less than 1/10 the number of Stars and Forks compared to Cosmos Hub and Evmos.

In addition, among these projects, Kava and Evmos have not experienced any security crises at this time. The other projects have all suffered varying degrees of attacks or crises that have negatively impacted their security to some degree.

• On May 5, 2022, $36 million worth of $JUNO was sent to the wrong address and was inaccessible due to a developer error.
• On January 17, 2022, approximately 400 Crypto.com user accounts were hacked, resulting in the loss of approximately $35 million worth of $BTC and $ETH. Crypto.com compensated users in full.
• Fetch.ai’s account at Binance was hacked in August 2021 and incorrectly traded $2.6 million.

It is worth noting that Cosmos Hub itself has not suffered any crises, but the famous Terra collapse and the Osmosis attack have made users concerned about the security of Cosmos. From May 8, 2022 Terra started to crash. The $ATOM price dropped from $16.5 to below $10; and the Osmosis attack on June 8 added insult to injury, $ATOM price dropped directly to the lowest point of 2022, $6.0961.

Token Economics

First of all, regarding the token utility, the tokens of the 6 Cosmos Ecosystem Chains in this article all contain the most basic utility of a public chain project, namely PoS staking and Gas fee. With the exception of Fetch.ai, the other projects’ native tokens also include governance and voting rights. Notably, Cronos Chain is a public chain developed by Crypto.com. Its native token, $CRO, can also be used as a payment method and discount within the Crypto.com exchange and premium service. In terms of token distribution and vesting plan, it is clear from the chart below that $CRO and $JUNO perform significantly better than the other projects, with a relatively low centralization of token distribution. Their private investors and team allocate a lower portion (or no allocation plan at all) and take longer to unlock. Kava, on the other hand, has the most centralized distribution, with private investors’ allocation of 40% of the total supply and a team allocation of 25%.

In addition, Cronos, Evmos, and Kava all have their own token incentive programs or destruction plans, according to publicly disclosed information.

• Cronos has a destruction plan in place to incentivize long-term growth in the value of its network and its native token. According to the destruction plan disclosed, Cronos burned 70% of its initial supply to help its ecosystem grow in the long term.
• Evmos plans to use 25% of its total supply for an incentive program (as a gas fee subsidy/liquidity mining) to incentivize long-term network growth.
• Kava plans to allocate some of its native tokens as rewards to projects participating in the Kava ecosystem in order to drive the long-term development of the Kava ecosystem.

It is worth noting from the aspects and the table above. $ATOM, as the native token of Cosmos network, does not perform well in terms of token economics. The fundamental reason for this is that the sub-chains within its ecosystem can issue their own native tokens (like $CRO, $JUNO, etc.), while $ATOM itself does not have any long-term incentives. As the Cosmos ecosystem grows, the value of that growth is captured by the tokens of the sub-chains, and $ATOM does not benefit from it.

Although Cosmos Hub has previously released a whitepaper 2.0 proposal containing a new token economic for $ATOM, the optimization of the token attracted a lot of attention. However, the proposal has not yet been adopted and its implementation needs time to be verified. (Related Reading: Cosmos Hub 2.0 — What Could It Bring for $ATOM Holders?)

Token Performance

According to TokenInsight’s statistics, it is clear that Cosmos Hub, the center of the entire Cosmos ecosystem, has the best secondary market performance for its native token. As of December 16, 2022, $ATOM is listed on 68 exchanges and has the most 24h trading volume with $120 million. $KAVA and $FET are in second and third place, respectively.

It is worth noting that while Fetch.ai has performed relatively well in terms of its token trading volume, it ranks the lowest among all projects in terms of market cap. And $CRO is second only to $ATOM in terms of market cap, at $1.54 billion. However, its 24h trading volume is only 13% of $ATOM’s.

On the other hand, $JUNO is currently listed on only 7 exchanges and has the lowest 24h volume at $440K.

Regarding the 30-day price trend, according to the chart below, we can clearly see that $FET is the biggest gainer; $ATOM, $CRO, and $KAVA are similar and remain relatively flat. Juno and Evmos are on a downward trend. Evmos has seen the biggest drop.

Ecosystem Development

The comparison of ecosystem development will be divided into two parts. First, we will compare the overall development of the Cosmos ecosystem with top Layer1s such as Ethereum and BNB Chain. The purpose is to help users figure out where the Cosmos network stands in all public chains at the moment. Next, we will cross-compare the ecosystem development of the 5 Cosmos Zone projects, mainly based on the collected data. The comparison dimensions will include the TVL share of the projects, the number of projects in each ecosystem, and community development.

Cosmos vs. Top Public Chains

According to the data on DefiLlama, as of December 14, 2022, the total TVL of Cosmos ecosystem is about 1.08 Billion, which is about 4.38% of Ethereum’s. As we can see from the chart below, Cosmos performed well at the beginning of 2022, even surpassing BNB Chain, which is currently in second place, and becoming the second public chain after Ethereum.

However, the Terra crash that started on May 8 has caused Cosmos to suffer greatly and its TVL has fallen off a cliff. Currently, Cosmos is in the same league as Polygon, Arbitrum and Avalanche in terms of overall development.

Cross-Compare of Cosmos Zone Projects

According to DefiLlama, as of December 19, 2022, Cronos is the largest chain in the Cosmos ecosystem in terms of TVL with $421 million, accounting for about 39.5% of Cosmos’ total TVL. Kava is the second largest chain with $196 million, accounting for about 18% of Cosmos’ total TVL. Juno and Evmos, on the other hand, perform poorly, ranking low among all projects in the ecosystem, accounting for about 0.72% and 0.32% of the total TVL, respectively.

In terms of eco-related projects, Evmos currently has the largest number at 133. Fetch.ai has the least eco-related projects among the 5 chains, with only 8 projects in its ecosystem according to its official website.

According to TokenInsight, as of December 15, 2022, Cronos has a clear lead in overall community performance among all 5 projects, and Cronos has registered and operates its own official media accounts on nine social media outlets, which are relatively active. Cronos has the largest number of followers on Twitter, with 2.6 million. On the other hand, Juno’s overall community performance is relatively poor among all projects. Its Twitter following is only 3% of Cronos’.

Overall, Cronos is the best-developed project in terms of ecosystem among these 5 projects, and as a public chain developed by Crypto.com, Cronos provides sufficient liquidity for the Cosmos ecosystem. At the same time, its ecosystem is rich in related projects and active in the community, which makes it one of the projects to watch in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Closing Thoughts

In summary, we have selected several general-purpose chains in the Cosmos ecosystem and analyzed and evaluated each of them on multiple dimensions using our rating methodology. We hope that our users will gain a deeper understanding of their technology and security, token economics and performance, and ecosystem development. At the same time, we will continue to monitor the development of Cosmos ecosystem and will make adjustments and updates accordingly.

You can read the original article here: https://tokeninsight.com/en/research/market-analysis/what-s-up-with-cosmos-ecosystem-projects-updates-and-ratings